It’s been fully a week since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement absent of any specific mention of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, and the only mainstream media mention of the breathtakingly glaring omission was in the conservative-minded Toronto Sun.
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I posted about Trudeau’s whitewashing of Jews from the Holocaust on my Facebook page, and was met with a chorus of “What makes the Jews so special?” and “Jews don’t have a monopoly on suffering”. The kind of anti-Semitic tripe that used to be spoken privately in whispers is now stated openly and boldly, and the cue is coming from the highest office in the land.
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No one is denying there were other victims, but the overriding agenda of the Holocaust was the extermination of European Jewry. The industrial scale killing factories built specifically to facilitate the genocide of the Jews also proved to be convenient for dispensing with Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and other “undesirables”, but the Jews were always at the front of the line at the gas chambers, and their total destruction was the Nazis’ priority. The Holocaust was also the culmination of centuries of Jewish persecution, and became a defining moment in the rich and tragic history of Judaism and a catalyst for the creation of modern day Israel. It only requires a rudimentary knowledge of history to understand what makes the Jews unique in the context to the Holocaust, and how failing to acknowledge their central place in it is at best woefully ignorant and at worst a deliberate and sinister sop to anti-Jewish interests. Either – or both – could be true in the case of a Prime Minister lacking in intellectual credentials and with a history of openly pandering to fundamentalist Islam, including normalizing Canadian relations with Iran, which makes state policy of denying the Holocaust and openly clamoring for the destruction of Israel.
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The most disturbing and disappointing element of Trudeau’s blunder isn’t the free pass he’s getting from the mainstream media. They’ve been in his pocket all along. What’s unsettling is the dearth of strong reaction from the Jewish community itself. Among the few Jewish organizations that commented publicly, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs said it accepted the explanation from the Prime Minister’s office that Trudeau’s statement was a first draft issued in error, which ranks right up there with the-sun-was-in-my-eyes and my-dog-ate-my-homework as credible excuse-making. The notion that the PMO would inadvertently release a public statement about something as profound and sensitive as the Holocaust is as ludicrous and insulting as the suggestion that Trudeau “forgot” to mention the Jews. Meanwhile, the statement remains unchanged on the government’s website several days after the “correction”.
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Maybe the deafening silence from the Jewish community has something to do with a Jewish tradition for keeping disagreements within the family, or maybe it’s a reflection of widespread Jewish support for Trudeau in the bigger political picture. Either way, I never thought I’d see the day when the 6 million would be thrown under the bus for the sake of social peace and/or political expediency. That it’s happening within the lifetime of some Holocaust survivors and at a time when anti-Semitism is enjoying a resurgence unprecedented since the end of World War Two should be troubling to anyone who’s taken the time to learn the lessons of history.
Ted Bird is a Montreal-based broadcaster who has won multiple Crystal, RTNDA and CAB awards for excellence in writing and broadcasting. He was kind enough to allow CFN to republish this piece first released on his BIRD DROPPINGS web site.
World War II is a sensitive subject in Poland, for good reason. They’ve gotten a bad reputation as somehow being involved or responsible for the concentration camps. No. The truth:
• Over 50,000+ Polish people gave their lives to save the lives of over 450,000+ Jewish people. More than any other country. Poland is also the highest number of people honored by the Riteous Among Nations.
• Out of the 11 million killed in concentration camps, 6 million were Polish.
• The reason Poland was even chosen in the first place for the concentration camps? It was the most religiously tolerant in Europe, and thus had the highest number of Jewish people.
• The concentration camps were German/Nazi. There was not a ‘Polish Concentration Camp.’ Propaganda in the aftermath of the war created the myth.
• Poland was the only country the Germans enforced the death penalty for aiding a Jew. Not just death for them, but their entire family. Yet still thousands of Polish helped.
The Cons sure are working hard at finding poo to fling at Trudeau. It’s almost amusing to watch.
The whole world is laughing with you Furtz. Selfie Boy’s background in drama is shining through and Canada has become a prime candidate for joke of the decade. I have every confidence that if there was an award category Justin could win it for Canadians.
As I said… The Cons sure are working hard…
They really should take a break and figure out how to become relevant again. Flinging poo just doesn’t work. In the meantime, Trudeau’s approval rating remains higher than any other PM’s in recent history.
Doesn’t say much for Liberals. How embarrassing to endorse an individual so lacking in leadership.
That’s pretty lame, David. I’m not a Trudeau fan particularly, but at least he is meeting with provincial and municipal leaders and discussing issues like an adult, unlike Harper. It’s going to take a long time for the Cons to recover from the years of nastiness and unbending ideology inflicted by Dear Leader. So far, it doesn’t look like the Cons have come to that realization quite yet.
I’m from Cornwall and spent over 10yrs in a large city, Just came back to Cornwall, I was at a shopping plaza the other day, this middle eastern taxi driver was picking up this elderly lady, She was going to put her shopping cart away, This taxi driver said”NoNo just leave it there!, they have people for that”, rushing this elderly lady, She said”Is that ok?” He said Yes,Yes. I’ve seen that pushy bossy attitude in larger cities before and never liked it!, Now I’m seeing these middle eastern attitudes in Cornwall, I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel right at all. I felt like walking up to him and setting him straight, I think if it happens again I will for sure, because its bugging me. I like the responsible, polite Canadian way, I don’t want to have that, screw-it attitude. They need to change we don’t!, Really is Cornwall such a hustle and bustle city that people can’t spend 1-2min and feel good to put a cart away??
Tom, taxi drivers are paid for transporting passengers from place to place. They don’t get paid for waiting on people pushing shopping carts around a parking lot. It makes no difference what part of the world they come from.
This is another story that happened to my husband when he began taxi way back in 74 here in Ottawa and in those days there was no computer in the vehicles and they depended on the dispatcher feeding them the trips. Like all drivers you fed the dispatcher so as to give you fairs. One day my husband along with other drivers bought the dispatcher some whiskey and what a time that was and it was at Christmas time that I can remember. Well the dispatcher didn’t wait until he got home but drank the booze at work. That was a small company back then and the owner was Lebanese. Well that dispatcher didn’t feel anything and sent ten cars to one address that is how bombed out he was. LOL LOL. ROLF! He kept doing this until he passed out. Not only that but an ambulance had to come after the dispatcher and take him to the hospital. LOL LOL. ROLF! The things that went on back then and of course I have other stories but these two were some of the funniest of all.
Tom I have been married for almost 42 years to my stick of dynamite a Lebanese Christian and he will live and die a Lebanese no matter how many years that he lives here in Canada and they have very hyperactive characters like you wouldn’t believe. One day when we were first married in Cornwall my husband had some good shoes to repair and he went to a Syrian man in Cornwall who repaired shoes. My husband had the mentality of Lebanon about getting his shoes done on the spot. The Syrian fellow who was born in Canada/Cornwall put his hands in the air and said to my husband “God only gave me two hands” and you talk about me laughing. You cannot change the mentality of people born overseas. I remember the stories that mom told me about this man’s parents and I have seen it even with people born in Scotland, England, France, Italy and Germany and other such places. Foreign people do not change their habits whether for you or anyone. 41 years? Did I do that? LOL LOL. ROLF!
Tom if you went up to that Middle Eastern man and gave him a piece of your mind I would hate to think of what he would tell you in return. Oh boy it is a good thing that you don’t know their language because this man would give you a piece of his mind and leave you stranded walking wagons and all back home. I can just picture this in my mind and what he would tell you. You don’t want to hear dirty language and he will use plenty. LOL LOL. ROLF! Language that is so mighty obsene that you would kneel in the confessional from hearing such words. LOL LOL. ROLF!